1. Technical Field
Example embodiments of the present invention relate in general to machine type communication (MTC), and more specifically, to a resource allocation method and apparatus for an MTC device in a mobile communication system, and to a method and apparatus for receiving MTC data.
2. Related Art
Machine type communication (MTC) or machine to machine communication denotes a type of data communication associated with at least one entity that does not necessarily require human intervention.
Services that are optimized for MTC are different from services that are optimized for human-to-human communication, and are characterized differently from current mobile network communication in that the services are associated with characteristics such as a) a variety of market scenarios, b) data communication, c) lower costs and effort, d) a significantly large number of potential terminals that communicate, and e) a significantly small amount of traffic for each terminal up to a large range.
MTC may be exhibited in the form of various services, and as examples of the various services, smart metering, tracking and tracing, remote maintenance and control, e-Health, and the like, may be given.
In current 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP), standardization of MTC for intelligent communication in human-to-object and object-to-object is in progress. A large number of MTC devices are disposed and operated for a variety of MTC applications which have main functions such as smart metering, remote control, and the like.
In a 3GPP LTE system, an MTC device or a general terminal are all treated as a single User Equipment (UE), and should be individually registered in an LTE network. Disposition of such a large number of MTC devices may cause scheduling competition for channel allocation, depletion of wireless resources, overload due to occurrence of signals, or the like, and therefore negative influence may be exerted on existing general terminals.
In addition, in the 3GPP LTE system, UE may be connected to a base station (eNodeB) having a bandwidth such as 1.4 MHz, 3 MHz, 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz, or 20 MHz, but the MTC device generally transmits a small amount of data. Accordingly, supporting a bandwidth up to 20 MHz to the MTC device in the same manner as that in the UE is a waste of resources, and this leads to a significant waste of costs in the MTC device aiming for low costs.